Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature

For the past thirty-five years, acclaimed Canadian artist Steven Heinemann has transformed the medium of ceramics in Canada. Working in varying scale, Heinemann explores the paradoxes between culture and nature, deliberation and chance, interior and exterior surfaces.

This first major retrospective examines Heinemann’s fascinating and evolving process to reveal how he uses form, texture, pigment, and imagery to achieve his wondrously tactile bowls, pods, and other universal shapes that embody the polarities between life and nature.

Heinemann’s process can stretch over months or even years, firing a piece multiple times, and reworking the surface by sandblasting, scratching, polishing, and stenciling to evoke glyph-like imagery. His studio is evoked in the gallery through an installation of sketchbooks and source material, including original photographs and a wall of ceramic test tiles. A time-lapse video shot by the artist documents a treated clay surface as it dries, warps, and cracks according to chance and calculation.

Click here to see Steven Heinemann in his studio discussing one of the works in the exhibition.

About the Artist

Since completing his MFA at Alfred University in 1983, Steven Heinemann (RCA) has taught widely in Canada and the United States. He has exhibited continuously since his first solo show at the Ontario Crafts Council in 1982, and his work is part of numerous public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Museum Of Fine Arts (Boston), Icheon World Ceramic Centre (Korea), National Museum of History (Taiwan), the Museum of Art and Design (New York), Museum Boymans van Beuningen (Rotterdam), and The Contemporary Museum (Honolulu).

Heinemann has received national and international awards including the Bavarian State Prize (Germany), the Juror’s Award (Mino, Japan), Fletcher Challenge (New Zealand), and in 1996, he was granted the Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s highest recognition of achievement in contemporary craft.

Wednesday October 18, 10 am – 6 pmSteven Heinemann Friends DayGardiner Friends are invited to join us for a sneak peek of the special exhibition Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature.
Free with RSVP.Learn more

Wednesday November 8, 6:30 – 8 pmArtist Lecture: Steven HeinemannSteven Heinemann reflects on his career as a Canadian contemporary ceramist and how philosophies of ecology, cosmology, and ancient artifacts have inspired his work.
$15 General / $10 Gardiner FriendsLearn more

Saturday January 20, 10 am – 5 pmCeramic Change: How to Make ItThis one-day workshop intensive for emerging artists in the expanding field of ceramics will focus on the nuts and bolts of professional survival and enabling skilled connections.
$25 General / $22 Gardiner Friends & StudentsLearn more

Image: Steven Heinemann, farawaysoclose (detail), 2000, Collection of the Gardiner Museum, Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, G01.3.1, Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid